This funding application is to support the registration fee and/or travel costs of participants including but not limited to women, graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and other underrepresented groups to attend the Gordon Research Conference on Lasers in Medicine and Biology (GRC-LMB), which will be held on July 22- 27, 2012 at the Holderness School, Holderness, New Hampshire. This conference started in 1965, and since the 1970s has run every second year, as one of the premiere scientific meetings for creative research into optics and laser use in medicine and biology. The objective of this conference is to bring together researchers from academia, hospitals and clinics, national laboratories, and industries to jointly examine how new optical technologies can bring progresses to medical practices, biological understandings, and pharmaceutical development. Biomedical optics is the science and engineering of light with applications in medicine and biology. The conference goals are to encourage scientific exchange between biomedical optics researchers from academic labs, clinical research, commercial enterprises and national laboratories, to critically assess the state of our field and to set goals for the future. The support for this meeting will contribute to our ability to strengthen and renew the international biomedical optics community by promoting a personal level of interaction between senior and junior researchers and those from under-represented groups in an informal environment, while ensuring that diversity and family accommodation is encouraged. The meeting has a planned set of speakers with good participation from basic research, applied technology development, and medical researchers. The participation of MDs as speakers is increased in this year, and yet fundamental breakthroughs in biomedical technology and applications are still a primary focus. Survey analysis of the conferences are collected each year by the GRC and in the past conference 2010, this LMB conference received the highest satisfaction ranking of all GRC conferences that year (94% satisfaction). Based upon this high ranking, and the longevity of the conference, together with our proposed speaker list, we expect this will be one of the best venues for our biomedical optics community. Funding to maximize female, post doctoral fellow and graduate student participation, as requested here is an opportunity to ensure that maximum equity is achieved in providing access to these under-represented groups. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The Gordon Research Conference on Lasers in Medicine and Biology (GRC-LMB) is held every 2 years to provide one of the premiere venues for discussion of research ideas in biomedical optics. The presentations and discussion focus on innovative technologies which can transform diagnosis or therapy in areas such as cardiology, oncology and ophthalmology.